Photos

Report

Due to it being Day of the Horse in Woodside on Kings Mountain Road, Low-Key made a late switch to the classic climb of the Bay Area, if not the entire continent of North America, Old La Honda Road.

We had a great turnout of riders today and an even greater turn-out of volunteers, including Bill Bushnell who joined the results crew after absolutely blitzing the climb in sub-11 on his hybrid-electric bike, despite some mechanical issues. When asked if his machine had been "upgraded" for this year, his only response was a subdued, "I made some changes..."

On the men's side, Brian Lucido took control from the first group to cross the line in 16-even, matching Tracy Colwell's 1990's Low-Key record, so a very solid time from Brian. Michael ONeill, whose wife Emillee was providing excellent finish-line assistance, finished in an excellent 16:16, just ahead of Low-Key legend Tim Clark. John Novitsky and Kieran Sherlock also broke the 16:30 barrier.

On the women's side, Kelly Crowley was back, shattering the 20-minute barrier with her time of 19:17. Helen Casabona and Janet Martinez finished off the top 3 in the strong 17-rider women's field, each of these three women qualifying for a Strava T-shirt by finishing ahead of Linda Jackson's existing Strava QOM. None of the men were able to beat Chris Phipp's KOM time today. Notable in the women's standing was Kirsten Do's impressive junior debut, finishing well under the 30 minute barrier with her excellent 28:12, moving her into second place in the junior overall standings behind Andre Swart.

Brian and Janet combined with Carl Nielson to score top points for last year's series champion team, the Sisters and Misters of No Mercy. Low-Key was second with Western Wheelers a close third. The points weren't enough to tip Western Wheelers from the lead of the team standings, however. Next week the standings go to two qualifying races rather than one, so Western Wheelers strong result today will help.

Chris Phipps stays in the overall lead for the men, although that will change next week when Chris won't be joining us, putting Brian Lucido in prime position to move to the top spot from his present #2. It's a tight fight for third with Tracy Colwell, who rode tandem today with his son Liam, presently in that slot. Tracy and Liam were joined on Team Colwell by Tracy's other son Skyler, who returned for his second solo ride. Skyler had another impressive finish to take the lead in the Endurance competition.

On the women's standings, Kelly's impressive climb today put her in the top spot, with Helen Casabona in second, and Leah Toeniskoetter, week one's top woman rider, in third. None of the top five women have done both climbs so far, so Portola State Park, next week, will have a big effect on these standings.

We are debuting a new Low-Key scoring category this week: the Most Consistent Rider. I won't bother describing wo leads that standing, as any minor change in results can have a big shake-up in these standings at this point. It will be interesting to see how this one pans out as the series progresses. It is restricted to riders who've qualified for max points on the overall (attendance at at least half the climbs, one less for volunteering once, two less for volunteering at least three times, with in this case at least two climbs actually ridden) since it is much easier to "get lucky" here with only two or three climbs than it is riding more of the series. This one is sure to be highly competitive, since just one week's weakness, bad luck, or excessive enthusiasm can wreck an otherwise excellent score.